Arenas

[cosbyrider]

If you branded your basketball team to a football team in a multiple club city, you’d be in affect killing half of your potential audience.

No Birmingham City fan would go and watch Aston Villa Basketball. Sad but true

[spacejammer]

Jun 1, 2024 17:41:36 GMT cosbyrider said:

If you branded your basketball team to a football team in a multiple club city, you’d be in affect killing half of your potential audience.

No Birmingham City fan would go and watch Aston Villa Basketball. Sad but true

I never looked at it that way but then wouldn't the European countries not have the same issues.
Like would Atheletico Madrid football fans be put off seeing Real Madrid Basketball team play?

[irf]

Jun 1, 2024 17:41:36 GMT cosbyrider said:

If you branded your basketball team to a football team in a multiple club city, you’d be in affect killing half of your potential audience.

No Birmingham City fan would go and watch Aston Villa Basketball. Sad but true

Villa way big enough to get the fanbase a netball team needs though?

[johnjack]

We have been here. Mersey Tigers anyone?

It’s going to be a big sell and big risk for netball.
They should all start bouncing the ball more and play basketball!

[dexter]

Jun 1, 2024 17:46:06 GMT irf said:

Jun 1, 2024 17:41:36 GMT cosbyrider said:

If you branded your basketball team to a football team in a multiple club city, you’d be in affect killing half of your potential audience.

No Birmingham City fan would go and watch Aston Villa Basketball. Sad but true

Villa way big enough to get the fanbase a netball team needs though?

Yes, no doubt. Aston Villa is much bigger than Birmingham City, and Nottingham Forest is much bigger than Notts County. They definitely gain more than they lose by being associated with the bigger club.

[irf]

Jun 1, 2024 18:09:58 GMT johnjack said:

We have been here. Mersey Tigers anyone?

It’s going to be a big sell and big risk for netball.
They should all start bouncing the ball more and play basketball!

The thing is with netball the fans will get the chance to see the very best netball players in the world representing their team

Which can't happen with basketball in UK

[dandayr]

Jun 1, 2024 17:41:36 GMT cosbyrider said:

If you branded your basketball team to a football team in a multiple club city, you’d be in affect killing half of your potential audience.

No Birmingham City fan would go and watch Aston Villa Basketball. Sad but true

the thing about following a minority sport is a lot of us dont really give a stuff about things like that.

Back in the day, the way the fixtures fell, there would be Saturdays I would be at Maine Road in the afternoon for a 3pm Man City kick off and at end of game take the bus into the city centre for a bite to eat then head out to Stretford for an early evening tip off watching for their short time under the name of Man United Basketball.
I do give you I was diplomatic and my City scarf would be in a jacket pocket - but that's just cause it was irrelevant to the match about to watch. Id see fellow blues there as well.

[cosbyrider]

Jun 1, 2024 18:21:13 GMT dexter said:

Jun 1, 2024 17:46:06 GMT irf said:

Villa way big enough to get the fanbase a netball team needs though?

Yes, no doubt. Aston Villa is much bigger than Birmingham City, and Nottingham Forest is much bigger than Notts County. They definitely gain more than they lose by being associated with the bigger club.

You alienate a good slice of your potential fans quite simply.

Equally when in my time living in Birmingham, it was apparent that big parts of Villa’s fanbase lived towards the outer rim of the city - Bloos fanbase more city based.

[cosbyrider]

Jun 1, 2024 20:50:16 GMT dandayr said:

Jun 1, 2024 17:41:36 GMT cosbyrider said:

If you branded your basketball team to a football team in a multiple club city, you’d be in affect killing half of your potential audience.

No Birmingham City fan would go and watch Aston Villa Basketball. Sad but true

the thing about following a minority sport is a lot of us dont really give a stuff about things like that.

Back in the day, the way the fixtures fell, there would be Saturdays I would be at Maine Road in the afternoon for a 3pm Man City kick off and at end of game take the bus into the city centre for a bite to eat then head out to Stretford for an early evening tip off watching for their short time under the name of Man United Basketball.
I do give you I was diplomatic and my City scarf would be in a jacket pocket - but that's just cause it was irrelevant to the match about to watch. Id see fellow blues there as well.

Yeah as a fan of basketball you would.

As someone trying to get into basketball, it’s a barrier

[cosbyrider]

Jun 1, 2024 17:45:33 GMT spacejammer said:

Jun 1, 2024 17:41:36 GMT cosbyrider said:

If you branded your basketball team to a football team in a multiple club city, you’d be in affect killing half of your potential audience.

No Birmingham City fan would go and watch Aston Villa Basketball. Sad but true

I never looked at it that way but then wouldn't the European countries not have the same issues.
Like would Atheletico Madrid football fans be put off seeing Real Madrid Basketball team play?

I can’t talk for the culture of it abroad in cities where there are two football clubs but one basketball team. Other than the sports club thing goes back years which we all know. Atleti did have a very short spell operating a basketball team.

Madrid and Munich are very rare example though.

Nearly all of the other associated basketball teams with football clubs are mirrored. Belgrade, Athens, Istanbul.

[dexter]

This is going to take a lot of marketing. Manchester Thunder just played London Pulse in the AO Arena. There were just over 4k fans which is not a lot for a huge arena like that. Admittedly, it's not really netball season now. People would probably rather be outside, whereas in the winter watching basketball/netball indoors seems like a good alternative to sitting in the cold and wet watching football/rugby.

[SamH]

How is netball attracting such big crowds? It has limited TV exposure and has never been seen as a mainstream sport, albeit participation levels have always been good among girls in schools. I am just surprised as it seems like netball has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years, but basketball remains quite stagnant.

[foxtrot27]

Jun 3, 2024 14:38:52 GMT SamH said:

How is netball attracting such big crowds? It has limited TV exposure and has never been seen as a mainstream sport, albeit participation levels have always been good among girls in schools. I am just surprised as it seems like netball has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years, but basketball remains quite stagnant.

I’d say don’t believe the hype. My daughter plays in the league and from the 15-20 matches I’ve been to I can say that it has a decent following but no scalable plan beyond current model. Basketball has one big thing going for it that netball will never have…….

There is a tremendous opportunity and market for basketball in the UK, but unfortunately no one really cares about British basketball to make a difference. Sad.

[silverbirch]

Jun 3, 2024 14:38:52 GMT SamH said:

How is netball attracting such big crowds? It has limited TV exposure and has never been seen as a mainstream sport, albeit participation levels have always been good among girls in schools. I am just surprised as it seems like netball has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years, but basketball remains quite stagnant.

The key upsides that netball has over basketball in the UK is:

1. Its pretty much a female only sport (i know the mens and mixed game are growing and bigger in New Zealand and Australia) so women "own" the sport and there isn't a male version that dominates it, therefore a really strong sense of ownership and belonging for those that play and watch netball

2. Its owned by the National Governing Body who are both desperate for it to succeed as apart of a clear single entity of the sport - league, National team and grassroots all managed and owned by the Governing body

3. Its actually an easier sell for someone like Sky as its a small number of games over a relatively condensed period of time (Feb - June) and game days are a straight 4 x 15min quarters of running clock. So easy for a broadcaster to manage start and stop times, ad breaks etc. No variables of time outs or quarters running longer than others.

4. Sky have also been involved for years now so they also have a sense of ownership of the sport and it very much fits into their aim of being more diverse in terms of the sports they are showing on their platform.

5. Its only really played in Commonwealth Countries with the top 4 countries fundamentally having stayed the same for the last 20 years (Aus, NZ, South Africa and England) and with Australia and New Zealand the only other professional or close to professional leagues then it means the English league has some of the best players in the world playing in it...which the BBL can't say it does.


Having said all that i'm still sceptical of the ability to scale it up. There is one thing having 1,000 core fans at a club attending 7 home games a year to trying to upscale that to 5k plus!

[dexter]

Jun 3, 2024 16:10:56 GMT silverbirch said:

Jun 3, 2024 14:38:52 GMT SamH said:

How is netball attracting such big crowds? It has limited TV exposure and has never been seen as a mainstream sport, albeit participation levels have always been good among girls in schools. I am just surprised as it seems like netball has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years, but basketball remains quite stagnant.

The key upsides that netball has over basketball in the UK is:

1. Its pretty much a female only sport (i know the mens and mixed game are growing and bigger in New Zealand and Australia) so women "own" the sport and there isn't a male version that dominates it, therefore a really strong sense of ownership and belonging for those that play and watch netball

2. Its owned by the National Governing Body who are both desperate for it to succeed as apart of a clear single entity of the sport - league, National team and grassroots all managed and owned by the Governing body

3. Its actually an easier sell for someone like Sky as its a small number of games over a relatively condensed period of time (Feb - June) and game days are a straight 4 x 15min quarters of running clock. So easy for a broadcaster to manage start and stop times, ad breaks etc. No variables of time outs or quarters running longer than others.

4. Sky have also been involved for years now so they also have a sense of ownership of the sport and it very much fits into their aim of being more diverse in terms of the sports they are showing on their platform.

5. Its only really played in Commonwealth Countries with the top 4 countries fundamentally having stayed the same for the last 20 years (Aus, NZ, South Africa and England) and with Australia and New Zealand the only other professional or close to professional leagues then it means the English league has some of the best players in the world playing in it...which the BBL can't say it does.


Having said all that i'm still sceptical of the ability to scale it up. There is one thing having 1,000 core fans at a club attending 7 home games a year to trying to upscale that to 5k plus!

I'm also quite sceptical, however, as the league will start with a single venue weekender, that means only 7 or 6 home games each. The league is only saying 50% of the games will be in big arenas, so that's only 3 or 4 big games to sell, although some teams will play all their games in big arenas (e.g. London Pulse always play at the Copper Box). They've put the teams quite close together so there will be some traveling fans. Most of the arenas are too big so they will be able to fill them up with whole netball clubs rather than having empty seats.

But the main thing I think they're hoping for is to increase the standard and the competitiveness of the league to make it much better to watch. They're doing this by reducing the number of teams and the number of players (and obviously the number of head coaches etc.).

NSL is already quite dominated by South Africans and Africans. I don't expect that will change. It will be British players who will be let go. I'm not sure what they will do because there has been no mention of an NBL D1 type league. If you don't get picked for one of these teams your netball career is over.

[docker]

It is interesting to see how much the governing body of the sport has always been behind the pro league with Netball. Think I heard that their whole Sky relationship started with the NGB paying a substantial fee for the privilege of live coverage. Not sure if that is still the case?

[silverbirch]

Jun 3, 2024 18:11:36 GMT docker said:

It is interesting to see how much the governing body of the sport has always been behind the pro league with Netball. Think I heard that their whole Sky relationship started with the NGB paying a substantial fee for the privilege of live coverage. Not sure if that is still the case?

yes i believe it was the case then it moved to a free rights but Sky took all advertising and even some of the leagues sponsorship revenue (based on the fact the exposure on Sky would drive revenue) but i don't believe thats the case anymore. I think Sky now cover all production by EN don't pay anything so fundamentally any rights fee they would ave paid is just covering the costs.

[eagles18000]

the difference is government funding to the basketball and netball NGBs has always been totally inequitable.

[dexter]

This is a very good explanation of Netball Superleague 2.0 and why they're doing it. If they don't, netball will probably dwindle and fall behind other sports.

An interesting statistic is Netball Superleague fans, on average, only go to one game per season, and on average teams only sell 150 season tickets. I think they're counting on netball fans in the South West to still go to their annual NSL game, but to Cardiff, Birmingham or Wembley rather than to Bath.

Team Bath netball are never coming back. If there's ever a South West team it will be in Bristol, if the arena ever gets built.

[docker]

That video was very informative. Quite refreshing to see how joined up the thinking can be when the governing body of the sport controls the pro league!

Also interesting to read that the owners of Harlequins rugby team are investors in the London Pulse Netball team based at the Copper Box.